by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

* We’re leaving; so we’re arranging talks with the Taliban. We won’t be there to protect you. Good luck, fellas!

* As long as I’m President there will never be a safe haven for terrorists. Does anyone believe that? Anyone?

* Some want isolationism; others want to fight everywhere — but we must be pragmatic and only go off into half-cocked wars, as I have in Libya.

* We have no troops on the ground in Libya. Good, but not good enough.

* We will support Middle-Eastern revolutions with fidelity to our ideals. Course, we’re not really doing that.

* We must spend more money, while living within our means!

* No, our nation really doesn’t draw strength from our differences.

* He’s so emotionless when he talks about soldiers dying or the country. He’s like an alien going through the motions and trying to pretend to feel as humans do.

Summary: Obama has a workmanlike, not particularly charismatic delivery. He may get a small, temporary bump from starting to pull troops out of Afghanistan, but this is really a long-term game. It was a terrible idea to set a deadline in the first place, he’s going against the advice of his generals, and as long as it works fine, he won’t pay a price. Of course, if there are problems, he will be quite rightly blamed for unnecessarily risking the gains we’ve made in Afghanistan for purely political reasons. This whole speech is about 2012. He thinks it’ll be more popular to pull the troops out; so he’ll do that. Let’s hope his foolish risk pays off. If it doesn’t, then in the end, a lot of good men may die so that a politician could throw away their sacrifice.